Hi is there anything like chatroulette for musicians, so jou can jam with random pepole over the internet? Sometimes you are just bored and alone and want a jam, and last but not least you learn alot from it... So is it anything like this?

Even if the latency is exactly equal, it still won't work as long as the lag is noticeable. For example, consider a situation where the two of us are doing this together. If I'm playing chords and you're playing melody, you're gonna play so that it's in time with the audio coming from your computer. To me, it's going to sound like you're late, and I'll try to fix the problem. Then to you, it'll sound like I'm speeding up...and so on. See what I mean?

It is a really really cool idea, though, and I hope it's possible someday!

There's a thing called Jam with Chrome by Google where you can jam with friends using your computer keyboard. That's the closest I know of. You have to have a good internet connection though or there will just be an error message.

I thought about using skype for this once, apparently the program is equiped with noise-cutting technology which makes instruments inaudible. I've never tried it myself though, I think lag alone would make it impossible.

EJamming’s technology focuses on the problem of latency. On the standard Internet, it takes a nontrivial amount of time for data to travel from one person to another. And the larger the files, the more travel time it takes, as anyone who has watched video online can attest. EJamming tries to minimize latency on a few different fronts, Glueckman says, although since the technology is proprietary, the company would only provide overviews of its approach.

First, the eJamming software decreases the file sizes sent over the network. To do this, the company’s engineers developed their own compression and decompression algorithms that shrink the file size, yet still maintain an audio quality higher than MP3, a common compression scheme, says Glueckman. Second, each musician is directly connected with the other musicians in a jam session, instead of being routed through a server. This peer-to-peer configuration “results in a lower latency by routing the audio stream directly to your jam mates rather than, on average, doubling that transport latency by directing the audio stream through a remote server,” says Bill Redmann, chief technology officer of eJamming.

I don't know how true that is, and how well or bad it translates to reality but:

If people can friggin hit a flying plasma ball with a laser in the air while dodging rockets and bouncing off the walls, with pings of 200+ on Unreal Tournament, musicians can find a way to circumvent the lag.

I dont know how modern games are tackling this problem, but i a m sure they have specific "unlagged" code to compensate lost packets and instable connections, wont be long before someone nails it for musical purpouses.

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I think the best way to eliminate the latency issue would be to record loops and send them back and forth. Of course, then you would sacrifice one of the most important aspects of jamming, which is the immediate cause/reaction that you get by playing simultaneously.

The problem is, even a tiny bit of a delay can throw off your timing significantly.

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